If We Could Have Everything We Want

This garden party was going to be difficult.

She had heard that he was going to be there and she knew that they moved like two people who had once been lovers; he with her name coiled in the back of his throat and she with a book, and a penchant for black silk.

She was watching him; he was sitting alone by the pink floribunda hedge, when her fingers, which still ached with an appetite for his skin, dragged her across the velvety lawn into his cocky lap.
"I'm not looking for any trouble,"
he sighed as her fingers lay themselves along his wrists.
I've left mine at home,"
she whispered, whisking her betraying hands into black pockets and easing onto the feathery cushion beside him on the bench.
"Your lover is talking to my wife,"
he said.
"They're both drunk."
She noticed, too.

Turning and grabbing her gaze, he accused, "You've changed!"
"So have you!," she cried and threw the book at his feet.

He lifted it between warm brown hands and read,
"There is, in certian people, a quality of loneliness so unspeakable..."
"...that even their dreams are filled with empty-handed angels." she finished.

It was hard just looking at her and his eyes began to glisten. He spoke her name; it flew from his throat, half flutter, half shout.
It was then she knew.
"Let's go," she moaned and drew him up by the elbow.

They walked quickly behind the hedge, through the magnolias and into the deepest shadows of the garden.

The book got left behind, its silky pages exposed to the sun.